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'Nosferatu' review or 'Does anyone else feel dead inside?'

'Nosferatu',
TR Warszawa and Teatr Narodowy

Barbican
Theatre, Thursday 1st November 2012

T
R Warszawa's version of '4.48 Psychosis' all but killed me, it was so
good – but this classy Polish company hasn't half ballsed up their
homage to Dracula, 'Nosferatu'. The production stutters along at a
stultifying pace, enshrouded in a cloud of boredom and confusion. The
few scenes that attempt to transcend this haze and frighten us are
frighteningly, laughably bad.

The
trouble with 'Nosferatu' is that it's patently trying to be something
radical when it is, in fact, a fairly straight forward re-working of
Dracula. All the main plot twists and characters are here – they've
simply been stretched out and rinsed of all their colour. Director
Grzegorz Jarzyna's script is, at heart, pretty basic, only it's been
thickened out with a whole lot of waffle.

So,
the first twenty minutes or so could be summed up in one sentence:
everyone is very hungry. Only, this is a profound production, so
there's a lot of disconnected musing about particles, time and
memory. It's all terribly dull and the actors, lost in a vast space
populated only by a dining table and a few chairs, seem out of synch
and out of sorts.

The
key to any good adaptation of 'Dracula' is surely a tense atmosphere
but this show feels incredibly flat. The sound and lighting effects
are so repetitive that they quickly grow hackneyed. There are only so
many times we can see curtains billow, amidst dry ice and humming
music, before the repetition renders such touches pointless.

Red-haired
Lucy (Sandra Korzeniak) is where the tension in this piece should
rest. She's already been bitten by Nosferatu/Dracula at the beginning
of the show and the first half tracks her capitulation. Yet she's so
cold and so silly that one wishes she'd simply switch over to the
dark side. She spends an awful lot of time walking, in a hypnotised
state, towards doors that blaze with white light. Every robotic walk
is capped off with a dramatic swoon. She faints so much that, again,
it feels silly and not in the slightest bit threatening.

When
Nosferatu (Wolfgang Michael) finally arrives, he's largely a figure
of fun. He delivers a number of clanging punchlines; 'I never
drink...wine.' Michael's delivery is incredibly lethargic; he sounds
like a slug talking. Later, when we see him in his lair, he is hidden
behind a screen and positively choking in dry ice. It is an
incredibly camp setting, which is odd considering this is such a
pseudo-classy production.

In
fact, all the 'horror' moments are bizarrely overdone and in stark
contrast with the rest of this achingly low-key show. When Lucy
greedily sucks blood from one of her victims, she guzzles incredibly
loudly and pops her head up, dripping in blood. She turns around and
glares at the audience. The kid next to me couldn't help chuckling.
Neither could I.